Harry Potter and the Pursuit of Happiness
by Hardcore Heathen
Summary: The Wizarding World has been kept a secret from Harry for eleven years. Sometimes, secrets are better left unexplored - they have a nasty tendency to kill those who look too closely. After all, to be a wizard is to walk with death - though Harry will press on into the mysteries of magic. Anything is better than Privet Drive. AU, Type Moon crossover.


**Disclaimer:** I'm not one of the wealthiest women in Britain, so clearly I don't own Harry Potter.

**Author's Notes:** This is a project I've been working on for...about a year now, and I think I'm ready to start posting to FFNet. As a general note, the fic is set firmly in the HP universe, with Type Moon influences on the nature of magic. Let me know if you spot formatting errors from the upload - and even if you don't, let me know what you think.

**Harry Potter and the Pursuit of Happiness: Prologue  
**

Harry Potter's first memory was from when he was not quite three years old, at a birthday party a month before the strange things started happening.

Banners had been hung from the ceiling with care, and it seemed as if all the world's toys were definitely there. The guests, with cigar smoke wreathing their heads, talking so loudly their faces turned red. The party was the picture of good cheer, and more guests and more presents continued to appear.

Of course, none of these things were for Harry.

That went almost without saying. It was, after all, his cousin Dudley Dursley's 3rd birthday, and Harry's Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had spared no expense to show their little boy how much they loved him. (The word "little" being used loosely here, as Dudley was always a rather _large_ child.)

Harry was last in line for cake, but there was more than enough for the guests, and Aunt Petunia couldn't refuse him in front of all of her husband's business associates. Her face puckered with distaste when she handed him the smallest possible slice, but Harry had eyes only for his piece.

He wandered away from the adults with his paper plate and plastic fork, looking for a quiet place to enjoy his treat. Stopping in the hallway near the bathroom, he slowly raised the for towards his mouth, giving a pleased sniff of the cake as he did so. Harry had never had chocolate before, but knew that it was the sovereign deity of all children and deserved proper respect before being stuffed into one's face.

Dudley chose that moment to burst out of the bathroom, bowling Harry over in the process. The fork and plate, containing the tiniest slivers of chocolate joy, went soaring out of his hands and landed face-down on the floor.

Harry scrambled to his feet and looked down at the ruined cake, his expression one of uncomprehending sorrow. Before he could come to terms with his loss and go through all of the proper stages of grief, Aunt Petunia materialized behind him. Her bony hand gripped his shoulder like a vise, and she whirled him about, yanking him from his shock.

Her expression had not improved from the moment she handed him his meager piece. "Well boy, you made a mess. Hurry and clean it up. I should have known better."

The not-quite-three-year-old boy nodded, knowing from experience not to argue when he was told to clean something. "Yes, Aunt Petunia."

The rest of the party's festive mood was somewhat wasted on Harry, but it was still overall a good day. He'd gotten to help put up decorations, which was a big improvement from cleaning or being stuck in his cupboard of a room all day. Then there had been a lot of strange people, and some people from school, and nobody had been mean to him.

As he snuggled into his bed, curling into a ball to avoid most of the bad springs, he realized something: _his_ birthday was in like, a month! Let's see, it was the 31st of July. That meant it was 31 days, plus the seven remaining from this month...or was it eight? Wait, did June have 30 days or 31?

Harry fell asleep pondering the exact day of his birthday, but returned to the issue shortly after waking. After several minutes of counting with his fingers, like the teacher had shown him, and with his toes, like he had been told not to do, he realized that his birthday would be on a Sunday! How awesome was that? Maybe they would have a cool party for him, too?

He asked Aunt Petunia about it over breakfast.

She looked at him as if he'd asked about Martian invaders in German, like it were a completely foreign concept that she lacked the capacity to comprehend in any fashion. Before she could completely recover, her husband explained things.

"Boy," Vernon growled from behind his newspaper. "We have parties on special occasions. Family birthdays and the like. You are not special, and we will not have a party. Pass the jam."

"But - " Harry responded.

He was interrupted by the snapping sound of Vernon harshly folding the paper down, letting the obese man bore his beady glare into Harry's eyes. "Boy, don't ask questions, just do what you're told."

"But why?" Harry wailed, tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

"I said, _no questions_," Vernon grunted back, enunciating each word. "Now _pass_ the _jam_ or you can go back to your cupboard without breakfast."

Harry bolted from the table, yelling about the unfairness of it all, and received nothing but an empty belly for his troubles.

Thirty-seven days later (June having 30 days, as Harry had correctly recalled), Harry awoke to the sound of his uncle roaring something too loudly to be understood and beating his meaty fist against the door to the cupboard underneath the stairs, where Harry slept. Harry fumbled the latch open.

The door immediately opened, and Harry was greeted with blinding light and Uncle Vernon's tight grip around his shirt's collar. After a moment to fully awaken, Harry managed to make out what his uncle was saying.

"-IS THE MEANING OF THIS, BOY! I TOLD YOU, **NO PARTY!**"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Harry protested.

"I'm talking about **that!**" Vernon screamed, pointing towards the living room.

Harry's eyes flickered towards the living room, and were immediately arrested by the wonderful sight.

Ribbons and banners had been hung from the ceiling. Balloons festooned the halls cheerfully. But center stage had been given to an enormous chocolate cake, with the words, "Happy Birthday Harry!" spelled out in green icing, with three candles blazing on the cake. Harry's mouth formed a silent "O" of surprise and delight.

Vernon took in Harry's surprise, and his purple face paled. "B-back to your cupboard, boy," he sputtered.

"But, but...cake!" Harry answered.

"To the cupboard! And don't come out for breakfast!" Vernon barked, shoving Harry back inside the cupboard. "I don't like this _weirdness_," he muttered to himself.

Harry heard him through the cupboard door, and spent the next few hours of his birthday listening as balloons were popped, decorations taken down, and his stomach rumbled in discontent.

He sat in the corner of the cupboard, then hugged his knees close to his chin, rocking back and forth and trying not to let the Dursleys hear him cry.

It might draw their attention, and he'd already learned that the Dursleys' attention only brought bad things.

* * *

By the time he was six (and therefore old enough to be wise to the ways of the world), Harry had had an entire year of primary school to determine that he loved and hated primary school.

On the good side of things, he got to be away from his aunt and uncle for most of the day. They also usually didn't bother him when he had "homework," because they hated having to go to "parent" - teacher conferences. On the bad side of things, he was stuck in close proximity to his cousin Dudley for most of the day. Dudley did not like him, and Dudley was for some reason popular, which meant that nobody else liked Harry very much either.

His "birthday present" of a rather battered pair of glasses (which the school had insisted on) had done nothing to boost his popularity. Being made fun of because of his glasses was somehow different than being made fun of for his height, and was infinitely more humiliating.

Which made it all the more surprising when Chelsea Galford, the most popular girl in his year, walked up to him and asked what he was doing after school. Harry wasn't interested in girls, not in that way like the people on the telly, but they were mysterious and fascinating creatures nonetheless.

He blinked in surprise. "Um. Homework, probably?" It was not the smoothest of answers, and he realized that it probably wasn't helping with his "nerd" image.

"Want to hang out before you head home?" she asked, expression bright and cheerful. It was not an expression Harry was used to having directed at him.

"Really?" Harry asked, genuinely confused, but strangely elated.

"Nope! Just kidding, four-eyes." She giggled and bounced back towards her friends, who made no effort to conceal their amusement.

The hopeful expression on his face died a quick death and he slumped a bit, blinking quickly to hold back the wetness at the corners of his eyes. Should have known better.

Three more girls asked to "hang out" with him that day, and by the time school ended he had no fonder wish than to be swallowed up by the earth, that he might never have to see or hear his classmates again.

* * *

By his 10th birthday, Harry had turned being unobtrusive into a high art form. He got up hours before the Dursleys in order to get as many of the chores done as possible. If Aunt Petunia couldn't immediately think of anything she needed him for, he could usually hide out in his cupboard until lunch. On particularly lucky days, she wouldn't remember him until dinner.

On unlucky days, she would continually remember his presence, and he would spend hours weeding the lawn, washing windows, or doing laundry by hand. Unlucky days weren't so common - he was good at keeping his head down and avoiding attention. Occasionally something weird would happen, something completely inexplicable - and he would be blamed and punished.

But aside from things completely beyond his control, he felt he'd managed to limit the misery of living with the Dursleys. It just required a careful eye for anything that could be considered unusual, and the instant willingness to hide it.

He was out on the front porch at 5 o'clock in the morning, oiling a hinge that he'd heard Aunt Petunia complaining about the previous day, when he saw an enormous gray owl soaring down the street, just beneath the level of the lampposts. He paused in his task, staring at the majestic bird of prey.

It swerved towards him and dove.

Harry let out an undignified squeak and threw his hands up in front of him, reflexively shielding his face and eyes.

After a full minute of waiting, he opened his eyes, which he hadn't remembered squeezing shut, and peeked out from behind his hands. The owl had landed on the porch, and was staring at him with its head cocked, as if asking him what in the hell he thought he was doing. Harry was viscerally aware of how sharp the bird's talons and beak looked. It looked like a Great Grey Owl, Harry thought, pulling the name from a half-remembered school project on birds of prey. He'd gotten stuck with the Brown Falcon, and was desperately wishing he'd paid more attention to that one girl's presentation on the owl that was now standing on his porch.

Did they eat children? It looked large enough to carry him off into the pre-dawn darkness.

The boy and the bird locked eyes for a moment.

"Hoot?" the owl hooted, twisting its head completely upside down.

"Um. Shoo?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Hoot!" the owl responded, clacking its beak.

"Seriously now, scat, you," Harry said. The Dursleys reacted very poorly to anything weird, and this was Weird with an audible capital letter.

The owl blinked, clacked its beak again, and bobbed its head towards the ground.

Harry looked down, and noticed an envelope. It looked thick, and in the poor lighting of the distant street light it looked as if it was made of old, yellowish parchment. The address had been handwritten onto the envelope, and even in the faint illumination, Harry could make out his own name.

"A letter...for me?" he said.

The owl bobbed its head twice.

Harry blinked. "You brought this for me?"

The enormous bird repeated the gesture.

"Um. Thanks?"

The owl…bowed, somehow, and then launched itself into the air without making a sound. Harry took a step forward after it, but before he could make it off the porch it had vanished into the darkness.

Well. That was...unusual, to put it mildly. After another moment of hesitation, he reached down and picked up the letter. He carried it under the street light so that he could read it better. The address, written vivid, emerald-green ink, read:

_Mr H. Potter_  
_The Cupboard under the Stairs_  
_4 Privet Drive_  
_Little Whinging_  
_Surrey_

There was no return address, but flipping the letter over revealed a large, purple wax seal bearing a strange coat of arms: a badger, a snake, a lion, and an eagle, all surrounding a golden _**H**_.

A chill went down his spine. This was the kind of _Weird_ that got him into trouble. And Aunt Petunia would be getting up in the next few minutes to start preparing breakfast. He should throw the letter away before she or her husband found out about it.

He walked over to the neighbor's dumpster (the Dursleys occasionally checked their own) and held the letter out over the dumpster. All he had to do was let go, and he would never get into trouble because of a crazy owl.

Still, there was a childish part of him that wanted to keep the mysterious letter. A childish part that, being eleven, he was more than entitled to. It was like something out of the fairy tales in the school library, the ones the Dursleys dismissed as "silly" and "worthless." Harry never argued the point, seeing as arguing brought down attention, and avoiding attention was his highest priority in life.

But there'd always been a part of him that felt that the fairy tales and kids' stories were...right, on some level. They had a simple and fair view of the world, which he felt was how things should be. The hero overcame bad people, and then things were great for everybody who wasn't a bad person.

The Dursleys were bad people, but Harry was no hero.

His fingers tightened on the letter, and he looked down into the dumpster. Heroes weren't real.

He stuffed the letter inside his shirt with trembling hands, then spun around and hurried back towards his cupboard. If he hid the letter before Aunt Petunia woke up, they would probably never find out.

Heroes and storybook endings weren't real, but that didn't stop kids from wishing, deep down, that they were. Even, and especially, Harry Potter.

He developed a sudden and intense hatred of that very, very stupid deep-seated part of himself. He knew it was going to get him in trouble.


End file.
